It’s a mish-mosh of subgenres within the horror comedy subgenre, but did any of these flicks deliver on the horror and the humor? Let’s find out.
BLOODSUCKERS AND THE GRIMOIRE (2024)
This quirky film is part humorous and part somber. It’s about a dude who finds out the dad he thought was dead actually wasn’t dead but now is dead and has left a house in the woods to him. Are you following?
Anyway, the main dude and his three friends head to the house. It’s a fricking awesome house.
They find a shed full of crucifixes, they find a grimoire, they read from it, and things don’t go well.
Meanwhile, a couple is attacked by a vampire out in the woods and turned into his minions. He sends them to the house to get the grimoire.
As the friends are enjoying a campfire dance montage, Evil Dead shaky cam approaches. The friends soon discover they’re dealing with vampires, which inevitably leads to another montage of the main cast preparing for a vampire battle.
There’s a little more to it than all that, but this is a pretty low-key film with just a few good, kind of campy vampire moments. It also ends with a cliffhanger, so don’t expect any closure…especially if there’s no sequel made.
CURSED HEARSE (2026)
This horror comedy, which lacks both, is pretty much Christine with a twist. It goes on the holiday horror page because it is set partially at a Halloween store, the home of the main guy is decorated for the holiday, and his love interest works at a haunted attraction. However, the season is mostly a backdrop and not detrimental to the plot in any way.
Our main guy lives with his grandma, and her sex life with a younger man is supposed to be a comedic highlight, but it simply feels cliché. It does, however, accomplish what it’s going for–it’s icky.
The main dude decides to buy a hearse from a weird old man. But first, there’s lots of talk about doing so with his friends. Even they seem bored by the dialogue.
Once he buys the car, the radio begins speaking to him demonically and he becomes possessed. There are kills, but nothing much in the way of horror eye candy. The plot twist at the end is the only thing that makes it more than just a bland rip-off of Christine.
SHED OF THE DEAD (2019)
This zomcom gets compared to Shaun of the Dead for obvious reasons.
It’s definitely not as fun, and the characters aren’t as likable, but it does have its moments.
The biggest downside for me is the decision to include daydream sequences in which the main character finds inspiration in medieval fantasies. These goofy scene seriously killed the pacing and the tone for me.
The main guy hangs out in the shed in his garden to get time away from his wife. Kane Hodder shows up to tell him his neighbors are all unhappy with the way he’s tending to his piece of land. Hodder accidentally dies on his property, and his best friend convinces him to bury the body instead of reporting what happened. Talk about anti-heroes.
Meanwhile, Bill Moseley has a cameo that includes a nasty joke at the expense of “lady parts”, and Michael Berryman has a cameo as a mistress’s bitch boy.
The action really doesn’t kick in until Hodder comes back from the dead while the main guy is trying to dispose of the body. The main guy has to team up with his wife, his buddy, and the wife’s best friend to fight a sudden onslaught of zombies at about the 40-minute mark.
It’s not exactly a laugh fest or horror fest, but it’s entertaining enough and has some good, classic nighttime zombie scenes in the final act.
